Online donors are fickle people. The environment has to be just right in order for them to donate to your nonprofit. Think of it like a first date—you want the stage set perfectly to make a great first impression. And if you have gnarly coffee breath or a piece of parsley in your teeth, you probably won’t get asked out for a second one.
Too many fields? Gone.
Confusing navigation? Back button.
Requirement for an email address for “future news and events”? Nope.
Our best piece of advice for preparing for this initial impression is to run site tests. Hand over the mouse to a person who’s never seen your site and ask that they navigate through to make a donation. If you identify any of the following points, abort mission. (In other words, these are all big enough deals that some re-designing should be in store.)
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Too many steps before a donation (people get visibly tired or frustrated)
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Difficult to find calls to action (do they know where to look for each step?)
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Long page download times (this could be an issue with large image files)
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404 pages (the ultimate red flag—do all of your pages actually work?)
According to the article below, 80% of donors won’t complete their transaction if they’re required to answer more than two questions (aside from usual billing information).
The key is simplicity. Take a good, hard look at your process and then continue to read up on online donations below for more great tips on creating a simple online donation process!
How to Make Online Donations Simple for Potential Donors [Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog]
